Kineo Kuwabara
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Kineo Kuwabara (桑原甲子雄, Kuwabara Kineo) is a Japanese editor and photographer, known for photographing Tokyo for over half a century.
Kuwabara was born in Tokyo in 1913. He started taking photographs around 1931 with a Vest Pocket Kodak, but his interest increased as a result of an invitation by his neighbor Hiroshi Hamaya to go to a photo-shoot in Kamakura. His photograph, taken with a Leica C, won second prize in the related contest, leading him to submit his work to photographic magazines, which accepted them.
In 1940, he went to Manchuria to take photographs for military purposes.
He returned after the war and became editor of the magazine Camera and thereafter edited other photographic magazines, putting the nurture of new talent and photographic criticism ahead of his own photography.
Kuwabara's own photographs received more critical attention from the late 1960s, but the revival only took off in the mid-70s.[1] He came to be regarded as one of the foremost street photographers, particularly among those active before the war. While his earlier photographs of Tokyo had concentrated on Asakusa and elsewhere in the shitamachi (area traditionally populated by artisans), his later photographs (many in color) show Setagaya-ku, where he later lived.
Nobuyoshi Araki did much to promote the revival of interest in Kuwabara's works, and the pair had a joint exhibition, "Love you Tokyo", in the Setagaya Art Museum in summer 1993.
[edit] Notes
- ^ As late as 1973 he was not profiled within (Japanese) Shashinka hyakunin: Kao to shashin (『写真家100人：顔と写真』, 100 photographers: Profiles and photographs), a 20th-anniversary special publication of Camera Mainichi magazine (Tokyo).
[edit] Books of Kuwabara's photographs
- (Japanese) Tōkyō Shōwa jūichinen (『東京昭和十一年』, "Tokyo 1936"). Tokyo: Shōbunsha, 1975. Photographs taken 1935–9 (and for the most part 1936–7) in Tokyo — particularly Shitaya-ku and Asakusa-ku — and nearby places such as Kamakura. Texts and captions in Japanese only.
- (Japanese) Manshū Shōwa jūgonen (『満州昭和十五年』, "Manchuria 1940"). Tokyo: Shōbunsha, 1975.
- Tōkyō 1934–1993 (『東京1934〜1993』). Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1995. There are 736 photographs, many of them two to a (rather small) page. The paper and printing quality are not of art-book quality; nevertheless, this book scores on sheer quantity. Short captions in English, longer captions and other texts in Japanese only.
- (Japanese) Kuwabara Kineo (『桑原甲子雄』, "Kineo Kuwabara"). "Nihon no shashinka" 19. Tokyo: Iwanami, 1998. ISBN 4-00-008359-7 Photographs 1934–97. Captions and text in Japanese only.
- (Japanese) Tōkyō Shitamachi 1930 (『東京下町1930』, "Downtown Tokyo 1930"). Tokyo: Kawade Shobō, 2006. ISBN 4-309-26929-X
